


two sticks of butter, softened

by inlovewithnight



Category: Ant-Man (Movies)
Genre: Baking, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 01:26:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15697332
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: So now here Scott was, looking up heirloom Dutch recipes on his phone in the baking supplies aisle at the grocery store.





	two sticks of butter, softened

For the first time in quite a while, Scott had a non-catastrophic problem.

Janet was back in the regular world, which was great—excellent, actually. Having her around made Hope happy. It made Hank be nice, or at least nicer, even to Scott. And of course, just the general knowledge that a human being wasn’t trapped in the quantum realm, that was great, too. Scott was happy that Janet was back.

One thing, though. Janet was re-bonding with her family, which meant a lot of recreating their golden olden days, which happened to involve a lot of her and Hope baking together. Re-creating family recipes, stuff like that. The products of all the baking were _delicious_. They were fantastic. Scott loved them, and so did Cassie, who was invited over to the embiggened Pym-Van Dyne house on a regular basis.

But sometimes the Pym-Van Dynes took off to wander the world, depriving the Langs of their source of baked goods. And that sucked.

So now here Scott was, looking up heirloom Dutch recipes on his phone in the baking supplies aisle at the grocery store.

“Slagroomtart,” he read aloud. “I’m gonna need a new pan for that.”

“Scott Lang?”

“Should I start with slagroomtart or banketstaaf?” He looked up, blinking slowly. “Agent Woo?”

Agent Woo in cutoff jeans and a Panic! At The Disco t-shirt, which was not something Scott ever would have expected to encounter outside of a very specific hallucinogen-induced experience.

“Scott! Hi!” Woo smiled and gestured between them. “You’re at the store!”

“I am. Yes.” Scott nodded. “So are you!”

“It’s so weird to see you outside of your house!”

“Hey, you gave me my get out of house free card fair and square.”

“Oh, I know!” Woo looked crestfallen. “I’m not trying to bother you, just saying hi.”

“Oh. Hi, yeah, hi.” Scott looked him up and down. “It’s ten-thirty on a Tuesday, shouldn’t you be on the clock? The formal, suit-wearing clock?”

Woo looked down at himself. “This is a little casual, I guess, huh? I have a lot of unused vacation time, and my boss suggested I use some of it before they give me another case, after I wrapped up yours.”

“And you’re using it to go grocery shopping?” Scott shook his head. “There are lots of places to go, Woo! You could be in Hawaii. Or Australia. Or… I don’t know. Anywhere that’s not a grocery store.”

“I know, I know.” Woo sighed. “I don’t like to travel, though. I actually hate it. That’s why I had so much time banked in the first place. I tried to tell my boss that, but he didn’t care.”

“Ah.” Scott nodded in sympathy. “Staycation it is, then. I’m familiar with those. I mean, mine have mostly been forced, against my will, but still, I get it.”

“I’ve already cleaned everything and taken an online class in French cooking. I’m really bad at it.”

“Is that what brings you here?” Scott looked at Woo’s shopping basket; it held a bottle of contact solution and a box of Earl Gray tea. “French cooking, Earl Gray tee, are you channeling Captain Picard?”

“I wish!” Woo laughed and smacked Scott on the shoulder. “You’re so funny, Lang.”

“I do my best.” Scott tapped at his phone to wake the screen. “While I have you here, help me decide: slagroomtart or banketstaaf?”

“Oh, you’re getting into Dutch recipes?”

Scott’s eyes zoomed back up from the phone. “How the hell did you know that?”

“I just now started cooking, but I’ve watched food shows forever. They’re very soothing. May I?” Woo gestured for the phone, and Scott handed it over. This was a strange day. “You don’t want to start with either of those, honestly, they’re pretty complicated. Start with cookies. Traditional butter cookies, maybe or… ooh, Arnhemse Meisjes, do you know about those?”

“I don’t know anything about anything,” Scott said firmly.

“It means Arnhem Girls. Named after a Dutch town. They’re supposed to be really good!”

Scott looked at him for a minute. He’d always been a soft touch for enthusiasm and someone who understood what they actually were doing while he was bumbling along. “You want to come over and help me figure this out, Woo?”

Woo’s whole face lit up. “Really?”

“It sounds like you don’t have any big plans, and I will probably burn the house down if I’m left unsupervised.”

“I would love to! If you’re sure you don’t mind having me in your house again.”

Scott shook his head. “As long as you don’t have an ankle bracelet in your pocket, we’re good.”

“Maybe I’m just happy to see you!” There was an awkward beat, and Woo cleared his throat loudly. “Also, you should call me Jimmy.”

“Jimmy it is.” Scott offered him a high-five. “We’re cookie buddies now, Jimmy. Read off the ingredient list, I’m pretty sure I have none of it at home.”

**

Four dozen cookies later, Scott felt pretty good about life. Also kind of nauseated, since they ate a lot of cookies and a lot of raw dough during the process. He was used to not being great at self-control personally, but it seemed like Jimmy ought to be better at it, what with being in law enforcement at all.

“That’s a common misconception,” Jimmy said from his place on the floor next to the couch. He insisted he combatted nausea better while supine. Scott was sitting on the couch in theory, but rapidly sliding toward horizonal himself, so who was he to argue? “We’re as bad as anyone else once we get home and put the badge away.”

“I guess there is a common thread of humanity in all of us,” Scott said, “and that is being kind of a lazy and shit with no discipline.”

“Not _all_ of us.” Jimmy sat up a little. “Not Captain America, I bet.”

“Hmm. You’re probably right. Probably not Steve.”

Jimmy stared at him. “You call him Steve?”

“Well.” Scott squirmed a little, very aware that it was shitty to milk the moment and very much doing it anyway. “You know. We worked together that one time. But I don’t do that anymore.”

“Right, right, whatever.” Jimmy waved that off and scooted closer to the couch. “What’s he like? Does he smell good? Is he endlessly surrounded by an aura of tragedy, or is that just a media thing?”

Scott turned on his side to face him. “He’s _amazing_. He does smell good, but the tragedy thing is definitely a cloud around him all the time and you can sort of smell that, too? It’s like… old-timey cigars and a little bit of pine needles.”

Jimmy’s eyes were wide. “Does he smoke cigars? I’ve never heard that.”

“No, no, more like he just… evokes them. It’s hard to put into words. Maybe because it’s hard to think around him, you just kinda want to stare at him a lot and do whatever he says and make him proud of you.”

“I’ve wanted Captain America to be proud of me since second grade.”

“Dude, same.” Scott fist-bumped him and gave up on not being entirely flat on the couch. “I didn’t collect the comics, but I watched every episode of the cartoon, did you?”

“We didn’t have TV.” Jimmy sighed. “I _did_ collect the comics, though. My mom would buy me one for every real book I finished. Then she realized how many times we were going to the library a week and made it one for every five books.”

“Do you still have them?”

“Of course! Bagged and boarded.”

“Like… in storage, or in your house?”

Jimmy rolled his eyes. “Are you planning to rob me right to my face?”

“No! God, no. I just wanted to worm my way into asking if I could come see them, that’s all!”

“You can just ask.” Jimmy lay back on the floor and stretched his arms out slowly over his head. “You’re welcome at my place any time.”

“Thank you. That means a lot.” Scott lay still for a moment, watching him from the corner of his eye. “You want to go get a beer, maybe?”

“On the way to my house, where you can look at my comics?”

“Maybe.”

“Yes, I do.” Jimmy bounced to his feet and offered Scott his hands. “Do you want me to take some of the cookies home so you’re not responsible for all of them?”

“God, yes, please.” Scott levered himself up with the help of Jimmy’s hands, then kept hanging on, gazing solemnly into Jimmy’s eyes. “I’ll die if I eat all of those, and if they are here in the house, I _will_ eat them. It’s just a fact.”

Jimmy gazed back just as solemnly. “I don’t want you to die, Lang.”

“Scott.”

“Scott.” Jimmy smiled at him, then caught himself and let go of Scott’s hands. “So! Let’s bag those up and then go get that beer.”

“Maybe some food, too,” Scott offered, already halfway to the kitchen door and ordering whatever part of his mind was being weird about this to just cut it out already. “We should probably have something with protein at some point, or we’re gonna pass out.”

“I think eating anything might be too much.” Jimmy hesitated in the kitchen doorway while Scott bagged up the cookies. “Definitely can’t handle a burger.”

“So beer first, then bar food once we’re drunk enough to think it’s a good idea.” Scott sorted the cookies quickly, setting one aside to put down on the sidewalk for the local ants. “Then back to your house to keep feeling sick and miserable and full of regrets, but with vintage comics. I haven’t had a night like that in years. It sounds great.”

“That was my life all through college.” Jimmy sounded wistful. “Do you ever think about how we’re all getting old, Scott?”

“Whoa, hey.” Scott pointed at him. “No getting mopey until _after_ the beer. That’s the first rule of beer club.”

“We don’t have a club.”

“We could. Only it’s not a beer club, it’s a… Scott club.” He made a face. “Too much, huh? A little egotistical?”

Jimmy shrugged and accepted the bag of cookies that Scott held out. “I would join Scott Club any day of the week.”

**

Operation Get Beers was a success. Its immediate successor, Operation Korean-Mex Fusion, also went off without a hitch, though the aftermath was a little rough. They were not all the way back to Jimmy’s place yet when the feeling kind of sick, miserable, and full of regrets caught up with them. They ended up sitting on the curb in a residential neighborhood, where their Uber kicked them out.

“Mistakes were made,” Scott said, looking up at the sky and immediately adding that to the list of regrets. He put his head between his knees instead. “Please never tell my daughter about this.”

“Your secret’s safe with me.” Jimmy groaned softly. “Why didn’t we stop? Why did we order the second round of appetizers?”

“Hubris.” Scott clenched his knees against his ears, trying to make his head stop spinning. “We flew too close to the sun, Jimmy, my friend.”

“Ohh. Don’t talk about flying.”

“Right. Crap.”

They fell silent for a few minutes, each waging a silent war against his body. Scott had no idea how much time passed before Jimmy spoke again. 

“I have Alka-Seltzer at my place. We just have to get there.” 

“How far is it?”

“I think… not far. Maybe four blocks.” Jimmy took a deep breath. “People have fought wars, you know. People have walked on the moon.”

Scott nodded. “You’re saying we can walk four blocks.”

“I think so. Hopefully.”

“Okay.” It was Scott’s turn for a deep breath, and then he slowly got to his feet. “We’re Steve Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes, Jimmy. We’re crossing no-man’s-land.”

“Can I put my arm around your shoulders?”

“Only if I can put mine around your waist.”

Thus leaning on each other, they made it the first two blocks before pausing for another break on another curb. “Steve Rogers would be proud of us,” Scott said. “We’re doing this.”

“We are.” Jimmy’s head was resting on Scott’s shoulder now. “I’m glad we’re both here. I would hate to be alone.”

“Well, if you were alone you probably wouldn’t have done the drinking in the first place.”

“Or the eating. Or the cookies.” Jimmy nodded, rubbing his cheek against Scott’s bicep. “So this is sort of all your fault.”

“It’s completely my fault. As usual.” Scott rested his face on Jimmy’s hair. “Sorry.”

“I’m not mad about it. I’m really glad this happened, actually.” Jimmy lifted his head slowly, looking up at Scott. “Today was the most fun I’ve had in quite a while. Just hanging out with you.”

Scott smiled at him. “Same here, Jimmy. We should make it a regular thing.”

Jimmy nodded. “But not all of it.”

“God, no. Not all of it. The smart, grown-up parts.”

“Perfect.” Jimmy took a slow breath and nodded again. “Scott?”

“Yeah?”

“I’m gonna kiss you now?”

Scott closed his eyes. “Yeah.”

Probably Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes had never paused a run across no-man’s-land to kiss. But maybe. Who was to say? Scott would have to ask Steve about that, if he ever saw him again. If Steve said they had, then Scott would level up to asking if that kiss was as good as his and Jimmy's. Because theirs? Pretty awesome.

He helped Jimmy to his feet and they resumed their stagger through the neighborhood. Somewhere up ahead were comics, and glasses of cold water, and soft horizontal surfaces with pillows. They could worry about everything else in the morning, with coffee, and leftover Arnhem Girls.


End file.
